Thoughts and suggestions from the Library staff at Tri-County Technical College, Pendleton, SC.

Monday, July 28, 2014

Natural Standard

The library has added a new database on its subscription list called Natural Standard. This is a database which is different from others that we already have in our collection in the sense that it is the first portal to books and articles in the area of integrative medicine. Integrative or integrated medicine is an area of medicine which combines alternative medicine with evidence-based medicine.

One nice feature of Natural Standard which makes it unique is that it employs a grading system to show expert opinions. For example, an article designates with A means it has a strong scientific evident. It has a statistically significant evidence of benefit from properly randomized trials (RCT), or evidence from one properly conducted RCT and one properly conducted meta-analysis, or evidence from multiple RCTs with a clear majority of the properly conducted trials showing statistically significant evidence of benefit and with supporting evidence in basic science, animal studies, or theory. B means good scientific evidence. This grade applies to situations in which a well designed randomized controlled trial reports negative results but stands in contrast to the positive efficacy results of multiple other less well designed trials or a well designed meta-analysis, while awaiting confirmatory evidence from an additional well designed randomized controlled trial. C means unclear or conflicting scientific evidence. D means fair negative scientific evidence. It also has a level called Lack of Evidence, which means the team of experts cannot evaluate the efficacy of the experiment due to lack of adequate available human data.

In short, Natural Standard is a good and reliable source of information on alternative and holistic medicine.